


Time and Time Again

by Ffwydriad



Category: Marvel 1872
Genre: 1872, Alternate Universe - Western, Canonical Alternate Universe, Gen, Post-Canon, clint has a gang of children, especially the deputy, even the deputy, everyone's a criminal, i guess?, i sure do love me some vengeance, it's a verb now, robin hooding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8873410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ffwydriad/pseuds/Ffwydriad
Summary: With the Sheriff missing, Timely starts to revert to its old ways, as does a certain ex-deputy.Sometimes, it feels like the pace of progress is too slow, and that for each step forward taken, two more follow in reverse.But that doesn't mean nothing can get done.





	

"I hate this," Natasha mutters, pacing back and forth across the room. "I never cared for him, but he was a good man. Timely was better for having him as Sheriff. Now they're disrespecting his name, and there isn't even a body to bury."

"We don't know he's dead," Luke says, sitting down in a chair leaned haphazardly against the lone table's edge. 

"Seems we don't know anything at all," Natasha says. "No one at the scene knew what happened. I had to question his mother, while the deputies all made wild theories and cursed his name." She punches at her hand in anger. "Backstabbers. They may have followed him, but they never respected him. None of them did." 

"The town may be trying to change, but it's hard. It will always be a push," he replies. "There's only so much that Mayor Danvers can do for this, and we both know it. She'll be appointing one of your backstabbers as the new Sheriff." He doesn't sound angry, more resigned, although knowing Cage that just means he yelled it all out hours before coming here, and Jess had calmed him down.

"I know," Natasha says, and she sighs. "There go our positions." She knew this day would come, that all the good that had happened. She'd gotten too close to this job, this life. "Any of them would make a fine sheriff, keep the law, but none of them would be good sheriffs. None of them would be him."

"Are you talking about Rogers or Red Wolf, now?" Luke asks, and Natasha stares out the window. "There's nothing more you could have done, Barnes." 

"I try to make myself believe some version of that lie every day, Natasha mutters. "You gonna try for the job, then?"

"I've got other things to worry about." He's smart, smarter than most people take him for. Trying for Sheriff would mean people out for him, and even worse, out for Jess and Danielle. The pair of them were welcome in town, but there was always that wariness. "Are you?"

"Don't plan on even trying to stay deputy," she tells him. "Don't get yourself killed on me, Cage. There's more than enough blood here in Timely. Fisk may be dead, but that doesn't mean his grip on the town's any looser."

"Nice to see you think so highly of my skills," Luke says with a chuckle, but the humor is morbid. "Where will you go, then? After what I've seen from you, I can't imagine you'll sit back and play the quiet widow any longer. Heading back to whatever it was that your husband turned you from?"

"I have no clue what you're talking about," Natasha replies, and perhaps there's a hint of a smile there. "For these few days at least we are still duly deputized lawmen, and until they pry that away from me I plan to do my very best to uphold that legacy."

Cage starts towards the door. "You know, I'd support you if you tried for Sheriff. I'm certain others would too."

"Maybe," Natasha says. "But I know better than that. I wasn't made to be a lawman, in the end."

"You know, I think this is the longest we've ever talked." Luke notes. "Wish it could've lasted. Was a mighty fine dream, for a little while." The door to the street opens with a click, and the man pauses, turning back for a final remark. "You know, there's always the chance he'll make his way back here and fix up this whole sorry mess."

"Even if I was in a gambling mood, I wouldn't place any money on that." Natasha replies, not watching as he walks out of the sheriff's office, but letting her face drop a little as the door closed behind him. Whether Red Wolf was alive or not, there was a familiar feeling in her gut telling her he wouldn't be coming back.

* * *

They are not, officially, asked to resign. The new Sheriff, Yates, pulls her aside and asks her whether this is the job a woman like her should be doing, and she can only wonder how it is they ask Cage. Not that it matters, for she would have turned her badge in anyways. There is no fanfare, no crowds, just her.  

Danvers doesn't say a thing to her, but she seems apologetic. There's no reason for her to be sorry. They aren't friends. Danvers is a politician, and Natasha understands politics. It's all compromise, the way she reckons it. 

In the end, she has no friends in Timely.

Cage heads to his wife and daughter. He will always be able to find a job in town. He's a strong man, well enough liked, enough that no one ever finds need to bother him, especially not about Jessica. He'll do fine.

She, however, stands on the edge. He was right, of course, because she couldn't go back to her quiet life again. She had barely settled in to that state when Red Wolf had come and pulled her in to the whole mess, and then she was deputy - if only James could see her now. She was certain he would laugh.

Except he couldn't see it, because he was dead. Timely had never been her home beyond the fact that James was there, and now the town was sour. Too much blood stained the streets, and the new Sheriff wouldn't be too much of a force to change that. Even with Fisk gone, the resentment there - Danvers would fight it with her core, but she only had so many fronts. Only so many people she could go after.

Natasha had always preferred taking vengeance all the way up to the top.

She finds herself standing at the door of a ratty old farmhouse. The ground around the house is either dry and dusty or overgrown with weeds, and there is a scattering of animals that runs amok behind the fences, which were perhaps once sturdy but now are broken and weary. One look at it, and you would assume it abandoned, perhaps, but Natasha knows better.

She knocks on the door, and there is no reply. He's not home, then, but from the shifting movements in the windows she knows the house is not empty. At first she thinks intruders, before she remembers the tall tales that had spread, orphaned and runoff children taking shelter here. She hasn't met any of them, however. She hasn't been out to see him in a long, long time.

"Open up!" She calls out, so obviously joking to anyone who knows her, which is perhaps only one person, now. "Let me in, or I'll let myself in." She can hear as feet scamper lightly across the wood planks of the rundown old house, and she walks away from the door, climbing over the fence and standing at the rear entrance as a handful of children peer out, cautious. They stare at her, afraid, and she grins.

"You aren't planning on eating any of my children, now are you Deputy?" Clint asks, walking up slowly to the house, dogs at his ankles and a plank of wood in his hands. It's been years, too many years - five, perhaps, or even ten? - but he looks the same. Maybe a bit rougher, more tired than before, but still the same.

"Your information is lousy, Mr. Barton," Natasha replies, falling back in to old patterns. "I'm not a deputy, anymore. Now, whether I'm hungry or not, that's a different story." He laughs at that, and it echoes. The children keep staring.

"Well, then, I'll simply have to bribe you with some alternative foods," Barton tells her, and Natasha can't help but laugh, and it is almost genuine. "Of course, that's only if you trust my cooking not to kill you."

"Clint!" One of the children hiss, a younger girl who's just as dirty as the house. "You can't invite her inside! She's a demon - a demon, Clint! - and if you invite her in then we won't be safe anywhere!" The rumors out here on the border are ridiculous, and with a casual smile Natasha steps up and enters the house to the girl's utter horror.

"I built this house," she tells them. "What makes you think such magic could keep me out?" She disappears in to the house and the children stare after her and Clint follows her inside. “You know I trust you, Clinton, but I have to say your newfound gang is lacking.” 

“Why Natalia, are you accusing me of running a group devoted to criminal activities?” Clint says smiling. “And supposing I were, then do you really think that these kids were all that I had?” 

The dog has stopped following him, instead staring up at Natasha. She thinks she may have met it as a puppy, one of so many that Clint had picked up. It’s hard to tell, there are so many dogs around the house, and that’s before you even start counting the children. 

“I know full well these kids are all you’ve got,” Natasha says definitively. “Unlike you, I still talk to Barb. But, if you wanted someone with some actual skill, I think I may know someone with experience recently out of a job.” 

“You know, I could use some extra hands,” Clint says. “You could give this friend of yours a visit, mayhaps, work out some sort of arrangement, see if she’s willing.”

“You know full well she’s always willing,” Natasha says, leaning closer. “I’ve missed this.”

“No you haven’t.” Clint turns away with a laugh. “You missed the action. That Sheriff pulled you back in and you’ve come to me looking for your latest source.”

“Maybe,” Natasha says. “Maybe.” She’s sitting at his kitchen table now, and it seems that inside the house, while covered in dust and sand and dirt, isn’t exactly rundown. He offers her some cookies, now mostly cold but still good enough to eat. “You’ve become surprisingly domestic, Barton.”

“As if you haven’t?” he questions with a chuckle. “You got married, Natasha. Became a housewife. At least I’m still a criminal.” He pauses. “Why’d they kick you off being a deputy?”

“The Sheriff’s gone. Dead, we think,” Natasha says. “And the new one felt threatened by me, I gather. Doesn’t matter, most people are, and I doubt I could’ve handled being on the right side of the law for too long.”

“Red Wolf’s dead? That’s a shame.” Clint mutters. “I liked him. Shot Bullseye right through his painted head, and that always meant the world to me. Hated that son of a –“ He looks at the doorway, and at the children listening in. “Well, he was a good man.”

She doesn't have anything else to say to that.

"You want a job, then?" Clint asks her, leaning against the back of one of the other chairs. "I've got something good coming up, just a few days from now. I could use you, your experience, your connections."

"What target are we talking here? You're no assassin, so I'm assuming a robbery. There a train coming through?"

"Even better." He laughs, and then smiles in a way she remembers dreading, all those years back when they worked together like a regular thing. "Xavier's Travelling Circus."

There are a few spare moments of silence, and then an enduring groan. "You can't seriously still be on that," she says, the annoyance written across her face. 

"Trust me, this time, it'll be perfect." His beaming smile is so excited that she can't help but feel a wave of grumpiness washing over her. "Hey, you're the one who came to me, asking for action. You're not gonna get much more action than this."

"Sure," she says wearily. "Let's go to the Circus, then."


End file.
